“Sounds like you haven’t hired anyone.”

Wick glared at me, and then the corners of his mouth turned up. “I need you to file, keep my calendar, run errands, help Jojo on occasion, schedule ads, and vet any calls I receive. Jojo is tired of hearing from every journalist in the state and everyone who owns a camera thinking they’re a photographer. I need someone firm. I need someone organized. Is that you?”

“I can be firm when you need me to, but I can’t promise I’m organized.”

Wick pointed at me. “But you’re honest.”

“I guess.”

“Thirty-six hours a week, one week of vacation … unpaid, no benefits, this ain’t a charity.”

I shrugged. “I don’t need it anyway. My parents keep my insurance. Or, they did. I need to ask them about that.”

“You haven’t said why you’re here. Everyone knows your sister works for your dad. Why aren’t you? Has there been a family uprising, or are you some kind of spy from the paper?”

I couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “A spy? No. If you’ll notice,” I said, reaching over to point at the paper on his desk, “that’s not on my résumé. It’s also none of your business.”

Wick grinned, his crooked, yellowing teeth making me never want to pick up another cigarette again.

“Do you smoke?” he asked.

“Yes?” I said, sitting up and feeling a bit creeped out that he’d mentioned the very thing I was thinking about.

“You’re hired. Nine hundred a week. You’ll start tomorrow. Let’s go have a smoke in the back.”

“Oh. Uh … okay, then.”

I followed Wick out of his office, down a hallway lined with boxes, and then out a back door. My boots crunched in the snow, and I looked up, letting the flakes fall and melt on my face.

Wick pulled a cigarette from a soft pack in his shirt pocket and a lighter from the back pocket of his Wranglers and hunched over. He cupped his hand around the flame and puffed, then held out his lighter for me to do the same. I leaned in, took a drag, and then startled when two men came around the corner.

“Wick!” Tyler said, slowing mid-step the moment he recognized me.

“Tyler! Zeke! You’re late! Where the hell is the other one?”

“Colorado Springs. Again,” Zeke said. He pulled two cigarettes from his pack and handed one to Tyler. I recoiled. Menthols were disgusting. That must have been Zeke’s preference. Tyler smoked from a black pack.

“Hi, Ellie,” Zeke said.

“You know her?” Wick said, pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah,” Zeke said with a smirk. “We met at a party.”

“She’s my new assistant,” Wick said.

“Assistant?” Tyler asked. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “We’ll figure it out as we go, I guess.”

Wick nodded, seeming proud, and then a deep line formed between his brows. “Make sure you don’t get her into any trouble, Maddox.”

Tyler spoke with his cigarette between his lips, squinting his eyes from the smoke. “You’ve got it backward, Wick.”

Wick pointed at him. “If you get kicked out of my bar again, I’m not letting you back in this time. I mean it.”

“You always say that.”

“And I’m not going to let you be friends with my new assistant, either,” Wick said.

Tyler frowned. “Now you’re fighting dirty.”

“I’m right here,” I said. “And I can hang out with whoever the hell I want.” I stabbed my cigarette in the sand of the butt canister and patted Wick on the shoulder. “Thanks for the job. I’ll see you in the morning. Nine?” I asked, hopeful.

“Sure. Don’t be late. I’m a fucking bastard in the morning.”

“He is,” Zeke said with a single wave goodbye.

I walked around the smaller building to the front, relieved to see that José was early. I slid into the back and let my head fall back against the cushion.

“Did you get the job, Miss Ellison?”

“I got the job.”

“Congratulations,” José said, smiling at me from the rearview mirror.

“Don’t congratulate me yet.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“This,” Jojo said, placing her hand on top of a five-foot-tall metal cabinet, “is our backup database. The hard copies—when we have them—go here. On the back desk by the wall is the scanner and printer—I’ll show you how to work those later—and in the corner is the most important part of your job … the Keurig.”

Littered with torn and empty sweetener packages and used coffee pods, the table was water-stained and wobbly when touched. The trashcan beside it, however, was empty. I shook my head.

“No,” Jojo said. “He doesn’t know how to throw anything away. Dawn cleans in the evenings, but Dad drinks about six cups a day, so try to make her job easier. She’s good, but she’s not a magician. And, since this is the first room anyone coming to see Wick will walk through, it would be a nice change for it not to look like a landfill.”

“Noted,” I said, pushing some of the pods and paper into the trash can.

Jojo gestured to Wick’s door. “It’s closed when he’s in a good mood, open when he’s not.”

I raised an eyebrow at the closed door.

Jojo lifted her hand, holding her fingers next to her mouth. She whispered, “So you can hear him better when he yells.”

“Also noted.”

She pulled out the chair, and I sat automatically. Jojo didn’t know it was second nature for me to sit in a chair pulled out for me, but I felt the blood rise under my cheeks when I realized what I’d done.

She tapped the space bar on the keyboard. “Create your own username and password here, but make sure to keep it written down somewhere so if you’re gone I can access this if I need to.” She waited while I tapped in my normal ESquared username and DoubleE5150! password. Despite my father’s constant warnings, that login had been created in middle school, and I had since used them for everything. If Jojo had paid attention, she could have signed into my social media or even my online banking if she wanted.

Jojo educated me on the program I would use for Wick’s calendar and reminders. It seemed simple enough. By the end of my first hour, I could check my email and Wick’s, and had access to his contacts and what to say when his various friends and frenemies called.